Behind the Pass: Chef Danny Brown

We really went behind the scenes to visit Danny Brown, the Executive Chef for Barclays Investment Bank’s Client and Executive Dining program in Manhattan, where he leads hospitality dining for Guckenheimer Food Services.  

Simply accessing the building is daunting, with tight security befitting a bank. The elevator doors open to the dining level, with dark wood paneling and paintings displayed between a variety of elegant dining and meeting rooms. It’s a hushed world of its own, with swinging doors that open to the kitchen corridor.  

Chef Danny’s huge kitchen has one of the best views of midtown Manhattan and Times Square. Not that he takes much time to enjoy it, with a busy schedule that begins early in the morning, with deliveries to receive and executive breakfasts to serve. A typical day will include lunch for a large group in a conference, and intimate dinners for the C-suite and their guests in private dining rooms.  

The rhythms of corporate dining differ from those that make a restaurant hum, with unexpected demands pushing the kitchen team to perform on very little notice. The Barclays building welcomes finance leaders from around the world; CEOs and other executives regularly come for meetings that often run long. This might result in a call to Chef Danny to get a meal ready for 40 or more people in 90 minutes or less.  

Executive dining is a delicate thing; the needs are specific. The clients and visitors come from around the world and have experience dining at fine restaurants internationally. They have high expectations, and as hosts, the executives at Barclays want to give them a wonderful meal. That’s why the food served at Barclays needs to be Michelin-level but not distracting from the business at hand. Chef Danny earned a Michelin star in his own restaurant in Queens, so he is up to the challenge.  

In this tightrope-tense environment, he depends on the early-morning deliveries from Fortune for fresh ingredients, including perfectly portioned fish and meat that he stocks in the freezer for those last-minute dinner calls.  

With a long history of working both front- and back-of-house in some of the top restaurants in New York and running his own, Chef Danny is uniquely qualified to meet the high standards and time challenges. His team includes discreet waiters who spend most of their time just outside the private dining room, attentive to any summons from within.  

For Danny, the product comes first and last. “Without really good products, it is too difficult to make good food,” he says.  

First Michelin Star in Queens 

Danny Brown grew up in Forest Hills, NY, in a house where cooking and music were prevalent. Danny’s father was a jazz drummer, and his mother was a language teacher from Auvergne, France. They later partnered together in the wine business, so Danny was surrounded by good food, wine, music, and the French language. He often spent time with his mother in the kitchen cooking and learning.  He names his mother an early cooking influence. She made mayonnaise, garnished soups with crème fraîche for a velvety texture, and cooked with seasonal ingredients.   

As for chefs that made a difference in his life, “Daniel Boulud was a big influence. The first time I had his red wine-braised short ribs, years ago, thick with veal stock ...it was a moment of French food realized with an American comfort food angle. Pierre Gagnaire is another chef who left a lasting imprint. He really made me think about food differently, serving unexpected and out-of-the-box dishes.” 

He followed his passion for music in college, studying jazz drums and performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston and Mannes College of Music in New York. He gigged with local bands at night while cooking in the mornings at his first culinary job at Bridgewater’s South Street Seaport Catering for The Glazier Group under Chef Neil Kleinberg. 

His culinary training has included apprenticeships in renowned European kitchens such as L’Esguard (Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, Spain), Michel Rostang (Paris, France), and Osteria Francescana (Modena, Italy). 

Known for his seasonally driven, modern bistro cooking and thoughtful wine-forward approach, he has also led notable New York kitchens spanning the Upper East Side, Brooklyn waterfront, and Brooklyn Bridge Park. 

In 2006, Danny opened his eponymous restaurant, Danny Brown Wine Bar & Kitchen, in the neighborhood he knew best and loved most, Forest Hills, Queens. The restaurant made history as the first in the borough to earn a coveted Michelin star in the 2011 guide, an honor it enjoyed for five years until its closure in 2015. 

Plat du Jour at Barclays 

When we visited him at the Barclays kitchen, Chef Danny cooked a summery salad with lobster and duck confit, influenced by Chef Alain Senderens via Christian Delouvrier, and a rack of milk-fed porcelet, perfectly roasted.  

We got Chef Danny to stop moving for a few minutes and talked to him about his cooking experiences, how Fortune helps him meet the challenges of his day, and more.